As a noobie wouldn't mind trying to ride bigger beaches in Indiana and/or just get a taste of what to expect if waves r too big for me... If anyone is gonna try Lake, Miller, or Michigan City lemme know. I will get offa work early. If anyone needs Casino updates u can text me 219-221-3954... -Matt

mrgrey wrote:As a noobie wouldn't mind trying to ride bigger beaches in Indiana and/or just get a taste of what to expect if waves r too big for me... If anyone is gonna try Lake, Miller, or Michigan City lemme know. I will get offa work early. If anyone needs Casino updates u can text me 219-221-3954... -Matt

Prolly gonna head over to Lake St. on my way home a little later as this is current forecast..maybe I'll get lucky; Through 6pm: Mostly sunny and windy. Temperatures steady near 56F. Winds NE at 15 to 20 mph.

Talk about wiped out... hardest hour I've endured in a long time. Got my first taste of the big lake and waves at Casino. Thanks to Ben and John for the help and although I only got a couple of good 60 yard runs in I earned much due respect to narrow beaches, current, waves, continuously being pushed toward shore, and only very slightly cross shore winds. Body dragging is an all new sport to me in those conditions with waves beating me over the head trying to make it back to my board, but all the practice paid off and I was always able to make it back w/o having to try walking in chest deep water to get to it. Even getting the board on was a fun challenge sometimes....

After making it once down the beach I was wiped out but felt good that I was able to control the kite, find my board, not crash or loose anything, and safely make it back. I wanted to keep trying but was just completely wiped from fighting the elements and didn't wanna be dumb and hurt myself or gear from doing something stupid b/c I was exhausted. Gotta wake up those muscles! Let's do it again!

Sounds like you took that experience for everything it was worth. Those struggles,successes, and realizations are the building blocks of safe and competent kiting. Welcome to Kiteboarding!!

No kidding. Big thumbs up. We've all been there....it only gets better buddy

thanks... ended up going to Miller on Friday after work and got in an hour or two of kiting. It was perfect side-on shore 12knt winds and I was able to make a couple of 300-500yard runs down the beach. Still having an issue getting going, trying to get past that "slogging" while trying to build up speed... I know what I gotta do, but still just trying to get comfortable putting the pieces together. Waves were still 2-4 feet from the previous days and making things more interesting.

I did try some new things though... used sand to bend over the kite on the edge of the window and pulled the lines to dump sand and launch. worked really well actually on the first try, as I had been using an anchor to launch. Also tried a faster tuning on the waroo to help sine the kite a little quicker to get me going.. all in all a good day on my own getting things going a little better. Finally I tried using my landing (center) lines to land the kite and that worked really well too, and was less of a mess than using a safety release and sending the bar up the line.